The Restructuration of the ISDS Field by EU Officials and Arbitration Practitioners: A Sociolegal Study

PhD defence by Guillaume Larouche

Assessment Committee

Professor MSO Mikkel Jarle Christensen, UCPH, Law, University of Copenhagen (Chairperson)
Professor Kirsten Boon, University of Ottawa, Law
Professor Andrea Bjorklund, McGill University, Faculty of Law

Supervisor

Professor Mikael Rask Madsen

Place

Building: South Campus - Faculty of Law, Room: Auditorium 4A.0.69, Karen Blixens Pl. 16, 2300 Copenhagen

Email address to gain access to the thesis: guillaume.larouche@gmail.com.
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Short description of the thesis

When a foreign investor sues a state, who should decide the case, and what makes their authority legitimate? Since 2017, the European Union has sought to replace investor-state arbitration, where the parties choose their own arbitrators, with a standing international court, and pursues that project in the United Nations working group negotiating the reform. Drawing on interviews with EU officials and arbitration practitioners, and on observation of the negotiations, this thesis argues that the reform is less a technical exercise in institutional design than a struggle between two professional worlds over who is entitled to judge, and on what basis that entitlement is recognized. The findings bear on the future of investment law and on how international courts are made.